


Visible from Space

by taliahale



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Bookstores, Coffee Shops, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Surprise Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taliahale/pseuds/taliahale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there's a blowup about the planning of Cora's birthday party and two oblivious young men argue their way into an understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visible from Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TW_FallHarvest](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=TW_FallHarvest).



“We really couldn’t do this by email or something?” Derek asks. He frowns down at the stacks of scribbled lists and hand drawn maps spread across the scarred surface of the oak coffee table.

Derek once had hope it might improve, but Cora’s eighteenth birthday is this weekend and her taste in friends is still the worst. It’s the only explanation. There’s clearly no other reason he’d be sitting alongside Stiles Stilinski on one of the lumpy loveseats in the back corner of Aurora’s Fine Coffee & Books.

“No, we couldn’t do it by e-mail, Derek,” Stiles sighs, shuffling his papers into tidier piles.

“Well, why’d we have to do this here?” Derek shifts, trying to find a spot on the loveseat that doesn’t leave him snugged against Stilinski’s side or stabbed by errant cushion springs. He fails. Miserably.

“Te adoro la tienda de mi abuela, you dick.” Erica punches Derek on the shoulder and drops onto a stool that used to look like an oversized alphabet block. Now it mostly looks like a box covered in faded, pastel paint. “Your sister’s a Grade A snoop. Cora would’ve found emails or texts. This was the only time most of us could get together while she’s working.” Erica unties her apron and tosses it next to the papers on the table. “My shift isn’t technically over for another hour. We’ve got fifteen minutes before Greenberg starts bitching about manning the coffee bar alone.”

“Right.” Stiles claps his hands together and looks around at the assembled group. Cora has a habit of blithely ignoring or trampling normal boundaries, so her friends are an odd mix of every high school social strata. “I know some of us aren’t the best of friends--” Jackson snorts, getting a round of glares and Danny’s sharp elbow to the ribs for his trouble. Stiles clears his throat. “Like I said, I know we’re not all buddies, but we do all love Cora.” Derek resolutely does not smile at the nods going around the circle. “So we’re going to get along at least until we pull off this surprise party, okay?”

“Absolutely.” Scott beams at Stiles from his spot squished between Allison and Lydia on the most hideous plaid couch Derek has ever laid eyes on. “Right guys?”

There’s some grumbling, but everyone’s at least following along and accepting the assignment sheets being passed around.

“Awesome.” Stiles scratches nervously at the back of his neck. “So I tried to tailor everybody’s tasks to what would work with your schedules, but if anybody’s got a problem, you better speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Nobody says anything, already busy tucking away their assignments and standing to gather their bags.

“That went way more quickly and with less bloodshed than I anticipated,” Stiles says, waving goodbye to Scott before turning to smile at Erica.

“That’s ‘cause you’re not entirely terrible at planning shit, Batman,” Erica replies, standing and retying her apron. “Derek, you still planning on hanging around? I wouldn’t mind a ride after my shift.”

“I can give you a lift,” Stiles offers before Derek can open his mouth.

“She didn’t ask you,” Derek says, awkwardly scrambling upright from the loveseat. That thing’s a torture device. With the amount of action those springs got Derek’s sure there are a few countries where they’d be considered married.

“Yeah, so I’m gonna let you kids work this out.” Erica rolls her eyes. “I don’t care who, but somebody better be here to take me by the rink after my shift.” She strolls off through the stacks, flicking her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.

“What exactly is your problem?” Stiles turns to Derek with his arms crossed over his chest.

“My problem? It’s you always butting in where nobody asked for your help, _that’s_ my problem,” Derek says, straightening on reflex. He’s struck by how Stiles has finally grown into those broad shoulders of his. Derek has a lot of bulky muscle on his side, but they’re of a height, which leaves those familiar brown eyes staring straight into Derek’s soul or something. “I can’t even be trusted to give one of my best friends a lift, let alone plan my sister’s birthday party?”

“You--” Stiles mouth hangs open. “I--you wanted to plan Cora’s party?”

“Well, of course not!” Derek manages to tear his gaze away from the soft swell of Stiles’s pink lips. “I hate parties and I hate dealing with Cora’s friends, but you never even _asked_ if I wanted to help.” Derek scrubs a hand through his hair, already mussed from the motorcycle helmet he wears for the sake of his mother’s sanity. Every time he puts the ridiculous thing on he can hear Talia’s voice. ‘The humans don’t know the fall wouldn’t kill you, dear, and it’s not as if it’d be a particularly _fun_ healing process.’

“You never said you wanted to be involved,” Stiles says, voice going pitchy as his volume rises. “I didn’t even know you were coming to this meeting, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m the only sibling she has living in town.” Derek moved back this past summer, nothing but a BA in Linguistics and Computer Sciences and his bike to his name. Now he’s got a part-time job at the garage on Elm and does freelance translation and coding from home. It’s been weirdly nice having Cora around to bother when he can’t stand to look at his laptop for one more second. “You’d think it would occur to you I that I just might be helpful--”

“I didn’t know, Derek!” Stiles throws his hands in the air, face flushing with anger. “Every time I’ve been to your house since you graduated Beacon Hills High you’ve treated me like I’m a leper or something. You can’t get out of the room fast enough!” He drops his hands, fists clenching at his sides. “I don’t know what I did that pissed you off so badly, since it seemed like you liked me just fine when Cora and I were kids tagging along after you, but--”

“You didn’t do anything, Stiles, it’s not--” Derek briefly digs his claws into his palms and uses what little is left of his willpower to keep his eyes and fangs from changing. “Fuck. You didn’t do anything, okay? It’s my issue. I’m just--”

“The hell are you guys yelling about back here?”

Derek and Stiles turn to see Cora standing between Science Fiction and Romance, hands planted on her hips and a death glare pointed in their direction. They look back at each other and it occurs to Derek that personal space is maybe a thing he should be more cognizant of.

“Are you—oh my god?” Cora rushes towards them, a growing smile morphing her dour expression to one of pleasant surprise. “Holy shit, are you guys finally dating?” She looks at the scant inches between them and their flushed, guilty faces. “You are, aren’t you?”

“Uh, that’s not, really.” Stiles bites at his bottom lip and Derek’s brain goes offline for a second. “You see, the thing is, um.”

“What would make you think that?” Derek asks, half-listening to the faltering skips of Stiles’s heartbeat.

Cora’s expression falters. “What the hell else would you be doing in the makeout corner of Aurora’s?”

“Well, you see, we were--” Derek begins, but is startled into silence when Stiles long fingers curl around his wrist. Stiles shakes his head at Derek, eyes wide and pleading. “Really?” Derek asks, voice flat.

“Well, she was going to find out about our little surprise sometime, Der.” Stiles shrugs, fingers slipping down from Derek’s wrist to clasp his clammy hand. “You caught us,” Stiles says with a nod and a weak smile. Derek tries and fails not to be impressed by the careful wording that kept his heart steady enough to fool Cora.

“This is so great!” Cora wraps her arms around both of them, oblivious to the glaring going on over her head. She releases them and punches both of them in the shoulder. She’s clearly spending too much time with Erica. “You guys, this is amazing. You’re total assholes for keeping it a secret, but this means I totally won the pool. Pizza’s on me tonight, okay? I’ve got to go tell Erica and text, like, everyone you’ve ever met.” Cora hurries off toward the coffee bar, fingers flying over her phone.

“Did she say she won the pool?” Stiles asks, fingers trembling against Derek’s palm.

Derek can’t manage anything but a nod.

“Wait, what were you saying before she walked up?”

“What?” Derek looks back at Stiles. Curious, gorgeous Stiles, who’s studying Derek with this expression that wrinkles his nose and furrows his brows and Derek sort of wants to die so he doesn’t have to worry about doing or saying anything mortally embarrassing.

“You said, wait let me remember.” Stiles looks up at the ceiling, thumb rubbing absently over the thin skin of Derek’s wrist. “Right, you said that I didn’t do anything and that it was your issue. So, what’s your issue?”

“I--do we really have to talk about this?”

“‘This’ being the fact that my epic pining has led to an actual pool amongst my friends on when you were going to let me down gently or take me on a pity date?” Stiles drops his hold of Derek’s hand and Derek feels—bereft. Derek feels very distinctly bereft, and they couldn’t have been holding hands for more than a minute or two. “‘This,’” Stiles continues, spindly-fingered hands once again weaving through the air between them, “being the crush I have on you that’s so obvious Wiseman could snag a good shot of it from space?”

“You--Reid Wiseman the guy on the ISS?”

“I really thought that was a cultural reference that would go flying right past you,” Stiles says, mouth tugging up at the corners.

“Well, you were always talking about how great space was and the importance of continued funding for research and exploration and how the ISS was the single greatest technological achievement of the last half century.” Derek shrugs and definitely does not stare at the floor, nervously scuffing his boots against the threadbare carpet. “I did some Googling and somehow wound up following a bunch of astronauts on Twitter.”

“Are you for real?” Stiles sounds indignant, which doesn’t make any sense, he was the one who was always talking about— “You were actually _listening_ to me back in middle school when I was rambling incessantly about the awesomeness of NASA?”

“I always listen to you,” Derek says. And that…sounds almost as stalkery as it actually is. Derek can’t help it if he has supernatural hearing abilities and Stiles has been Cora’s most regular study partner for the last decade. He looks up from his boots and Stiles is staring at him, mouth hanging open again. “I’ve always listened to you. That’s the problem, Stiles I—I _always_ liked listening to you.”

“Is listening code here?” Stiles asks. “Do you have, like, a Stiles voice fetish? I’d understand, the dulcet tones of a Stilinski are legendarily difficult to ignore, but I’m getting more of a vibe like you were crushing on me when the age gap was a definite obstacle, here. Is that, uh, an intentional vibe?”

“I--” Derek can feel his ears flushing and he’s pinned in place by the wide, surprised stare of wicked brown eyes. “Could you maybe not talk about vibes?”

“Oh my God, you _like_ me?” Stiles is staring at Derek like he’s grown an extra head or something. “I turned eighteen _months_ ago, you asshole.”

“Um, you, wait." Derek stares back at Stiles with a matching, poleaxed expression. "What does that mean?”

“I like you, _too._ ” Stiles hands wrap around Derek’s shoulders. “Like really a ridiculous amount and for a truly pitiful length of time and--”

And then Stiles stops talking, because Derek’s come up with something for more pleasant for them to be doing.

“You’re just saying that to win the pool,” Erica says, traipsing after Cora. “There’s no way they managed to pull their heads out of their asses that fast.”

“Then how do you explain that?” Cora crosses her arms over her chest, tone smug.

“I—fuck, you won the pool. Lemme borrow your phone so we’ve got photographic evidence,” Erica grumbles. “Then we’ve gotta get them off that loveseat or Abuela’s going to kill me.”


End file.
